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Notre Dame fans travel to MetLife Stadium

Though it was a long road trip for a weekend, many Notre Dame students traveled to New Jersey to see the Irish defend their undefeated record against Syracuse on Saturday.

The Irish continued their win streak with a 31-15 win against the Orange. During the game, Irish senior quarterback Everett Golson recorded 25 consecutive completions, which broke the University record and fell one short of tying the Football Bowl Subdivision record for most consecutive completions.

Wei Lin

Despite the new record, senior Andrew Winterstein said he thought the Irish didn’t play up to their potential.

“I thought the defense played pretty well last night and held the Orange to a number of three-and-outs, even though they still gave up a number of deep balls,” he said. “At times the offense looked strong, but on the whole, there were a ton of turnovers, making for a sloppy game.”

The game was played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey rather than at Syracuse’s stadium in New York. Sophomore Joey Ganyard said seeing the game at MetLife made the experience that much better.

“MetLife was awesome,” he said. “I had never been to the stadium before. I was extremely impressed.”

Ganyard said he and his friends braved an 11-hour drive to watch the game in person.

“We stuffed a car full of people and road tripped out for the game,” he said. “It was a squeeze, but it added to the experience.”

The distance from Notre Dame to the game didn’t stop fans from providing strong support for the Irish, sophomore Warren Kraemer said.

“Notre Dame has a strong connection in the tri-state area, so it didn’t feel like an away game,” Kraemer said. “There was plenty of Irish green in the stadium to cheer against the Syracuse Orange.”

The energy from Notre Dame fans even overpowered that of the home team, sophomore Zach Winterstein said.

“Overall, the energy from the Notre Dame fans was incredible,” he said. “There is no doubt in my mind that there were more Notre Dame fans at the game than Syracuse fans, and that fact was made quite apparent whenever a Syracuse fan would try to start a chant and quickly get drowned out by louder Notre Dame chants.”

“I could always hear ‘Let’s go Irish’ chants over anything Syracuse-related,” he said. “It was pretty clear that Syracuse didn’t even sell out their student section.”

Despite the energy from the fans in New Jersey, there is truly no experience like seeing a football game at home, Ganyard said.

“There was a good amount of energy from the fans [at MetLife Stadium], but not the same as Notre Dame Stadium,” he said. “It makes a big difference not having the student section there. It was really cool to be in a new environment for the game, but it wasn’t quite the same energy.”

Overall, though, traveling to New Jersey to see the Irish play was worth it, Zach Winterstein said.

“My overall experience this weekend was great,” he said. “I got to see my family, tailgate with my friends and see the Irish play. I can’t ask for much more than that.”